We’ve been in Naples for about three weeks now. It’s been a pretty eventful time and we are still on schedule to complete shooting in the beginning of July.

Our first week was spent meeting with potential subjects and working out logistical matters for the project. The past two weeks has been full of video interviews, still portraits and visits to toxic waste sites.

We have narrowed down our main subject list and look forward to spending more time with the Cannavacciuolo family. While the family has already been featured in previous documentaries, their story is quite moving and has yet to be fully developed. We have interviewed Alessandro, one of the children, a young guy in his 20s who grew up during the most difficult years for the family business – years when all the sheep were contaminated by dioxin.

Alessandro appeared angry when we spoke at home. From the 1990s up to this day, he meticulously collected clips from newspapers that relate directly or indirectly to the environmental emergency in Campania and in particular to his family. He took out several bags full of archival material and he showed us what he thought were the pivotal moments of the crisis. He also emphasized how from his great-grandfather up to his father everyone grew up as a sheepherder. Because of this environmental crisis and the death of his uncle, this profession is now out of family traditions.

Last week, we also visited a couple of dump sites in the countryside. We were lucky enough to have access in a site of ecoballe where all the toxic and non-toxic waste from 20 years of illicit dumping activity has been collected and put together into huge piles of trash covered by a black tarp. We got several close up shots of the ecoballe and one of the workers on the site let us shoot the leachate that has been deposited from the ecoballe. Leachate is the liquid that drains from toxic waste material in a landfill. To receive continued and more frequent updates on the project be sure to look at the website for Campania In-Felix (Unhappy Country)

Here are a few video frame grabs from the past couple weeks. All the still photography is being shot with film and will not be developed until August.

A video frame grab of leachate coming from a site of ecoballe located directly next to a farm in the Triangle of Death area

A video frame grab of Alessandro in his home in Acerra surrounded by documents and newspaper clippings

A video frame grab of Gennaro Esposito, an activist doctor at a toxic waste burial site